Sony Home - The official thread*

[patsu]

They only need to support my Home app as an XMB chat client. PS Home already supports multi-channel chatting. Should be possible to add a chat gateway to the XMB chat room.

Most of these Gaffers don't use Home. I ended up switching between Home and the chat room to talk to both parties. >_<

 

[patsu]

Okay... going home to watch Sony conference in Playstation Home. Let's see if Sony can keep up with their competition. ^_^

 

[patsu]

Unfortunately, by the time I reached home, Playstation Home was already too overloaded to sign in. 8^/

Should have watched in the office since I was signed in at that time. Wanted to see what other PS3 users think about the presentation.

 

[ShadowRunner]

I was there signed in and in the E3 theatre but the conference failed to load, just a blank screen, so i turned it off and watched at gametrailers.

For all the flak it gets there a lot of people that are really into home it seems, and get a lot of enjoyment out of it. Whenever i have visited recently it has always been packed and had lots conversations and things going on. Its hard to get a handle on exactly how many people use it though, even just a few thousand people using it regularly could give the impression of it being much more popular than it is. One things for sure there is a group of people that get a lot out of it, just dont know how big that group is.

 

[Arwin]

Unfortunately, by the time I reached home, Playstation Home was already too overloaded to sign in. 8^/

Should have watched in the office since I was signed in at that time. Wanted to see what other PS3 users think about the presentation.

I could sign in fine, but got to late to connect to the video stream. It was still fun though to see and hear people react to the video.

 

[patsu]

I was there signed in and in the E3 theatre but the conference failed to load, just a blank screen, so i turned it off and watched at gametrailers.

For all the flak it gets there a lot of people that are really into home it seems, and get a lot of enjoyment out of it. Whenever i have visited recently it has always been packed and had lots conversations and things going on. Its hard to get a handle on exactly how many people use it though, even just a few thousand people using it regularly could give the impression of it being much more popular than it is. One things for sure there is a group of people that get a lot out of it, just dont know how big that group is.

Yeah... the rooms are more full after the great PSN downtime.

I watched Apple's press conference yesterday. How I wish Sony add "Notification Center" to PSN. The concept is more general than Mango's "alert" tiles. Sony already has a real-time player info infrastructure (used by Demon's Souls to show other players' "white ghosts"). They can generalize it to support real-time app/community info.

 

[Nesh]

Does anyone have any idea how do I get access to the items that are offered by the Welcome Back program in Home??

I cant find them

 

[patsu]

It's in the Central Plaza. There is a kiosk in the middle. Go near it and a PS Store interface will pop up.

 

[Nesh]

Hmm downloaded the free areas. Doesnt allow me to download clothes yet

 

[patsu]

You need to download the items one by one. I didn't bother with the 100 free items. There are some cool ones though.

 

[Nesh]

One by one!! Areyou kidding me??

 

[patsu]

That's what I heard from other Home users. I'm there to fool around, not to wear pixel clothes.

 

[patsu]

http://gamasutra.com/view/news/3512..._Record_Activity_Levels_After_PSNs_Return.php

At E3 2011, Sony's Jack Buser revealed to Gamasutra that the company's social platform PlayStation Home reached an all-time high in user activity levels since the PlayStation Network came back online.

"We're having record traffic in Home," said Buser, who serves as director for PlayStation Home. "The week we restored the service, we hit a new record in terms of weekly unique users."

"We were watching the numbers and we were just so excited. We were just dancing in the streets. The numbers are through the roof, he added."I think it speaks to the loyalty of our user base, and to the power of these kinds of platforms."

These increased activity levels coincide with other recent boosts in PlayStation activity. At the Sony's media briefing on Tuesday, company president and CEO Jack Tretton announced that since PSN's return, PlayStation 3 hardware sales have risen by 27 percent and that PSN activity levels have reached 90 percent of pre-outage numbers.

PlayStation Home, however, is the only segment of the PlayStation Network to exceed its previous traffic records after the service's return.

Likely thanks to the E3 Live Streaming and 100 free items.

I missed it a little while the PSN was down.

 

[patsu]

http://www.siliconera.com/2011/06/1...zella-working-on-ps-home-ps3-and-vita-titles/

Kazuma Kujo, the creative designer behind Steambot Chronicles and the Disaster Report titles, left Irem and opened a new company called Granzella. Speaking with Famitsu, Kujo explained the cancellation of Disaster Report 4, an ambitious PlayStation 3 version of the series, was not the reason he left Irem. Kujo felt there was a disconnect between fan expectations and demands from the management side.

Granzella just opened, but is already working on their first project… games for PlayStation Home. Kujo says these digital titles will compare to retail games. At the end of the year, Granzella will release a downloadable game for PlayStation 3.

Kujo hopes to expand with Android games plus PlayStation Vita titles next year. Oh, and an April Fool’s Gag too; Kujo is already planning an Internet prank, sometime Irem became known for.

...

 

[patsu]

http://gamasutra.com/view/news/3512..._Record_Activity_Levels_After_PSNs_Return.php

Likely thanks to the E3 Live Streaming and 100 free items.

I missed it a little while the PSN was down.

http://venturebeat.com/2011/06/15/sonys-playstation-home-generated-half-a-million-visits-during-e3/

Sony’s PlayStation Home virtual world drew more than 500,000 gamers to the company’s virtual E3 booth during the video game industry’s E3 trade show last week. That compares to the 46,800 people who officially attended the event in person.

Interesting that a non-game so many bashed continues to sustain and weather the rough times. Really hope Sony pay more attention to community play. Would be cool if we have a Home for Vita too, and integrate with Vita's 2D services like Near.

 

[patsu]

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-06-22-ndreams-aurora-1-million-visits-in-6-weeks

PlayStation Home virtual environment Aurora has seen over a million visits in just six weeks, according to publisher nDreams.

Appearing as a floating archipelago within PlayStation Home, Aurora is free to enter and allows visitors to play games, win rewards and purchase their own islands.

During the launch nDreams ran a competition called Aurora War in which over 300,000 players from around the world competed against each other.

As part of the PlayStation Network Welcome Back pack Sony are currently offering a free Aurora Orbrunner. In the future nDreams plans to open new areas, games and events, as well as Web browser support.

I haven't visited Aurora yet.

 

[Arwin]

I didn't even know Aurora was there ... will see if I can squeeze a visit in.

By the way pats, you quietly passed the 20,000 mark I see! Congrats on that ... ehm ... achievement. (I always have mixed feellings when I look at my own post-count, things about wasted time etc ... )

 

[patsu]

Yeah, working hard to earn ads dollars for B3D it seems. xD

Curious to see whether and how the vendors will evolve their platforms, and whether my understanding and predictions are correct.

I see more people in Home now. Have been using the XMB chatroom to hang out with other gamers everyday too. It's a pity Sony can't consolidate their services together. They are both very powerful tools, but underutilized so far.

 

[patsu]

http://www.giantbomb.com/news/the-man-pulling-playstation-homes-strings/3445/

When I started researching this second set of articles, I wanted to gain a sense of Home's demographics. That's been incredibly hard to nail down, as Home fan sites are all over the place. I did have a theory, though, that Home users were not the primary gamers in a household. Instead, it was the brother, sister or mother not really into games.

While Buser admitted Home has all kinds of users, he told me my theory isn't really true.

"If you look at the average Home user, they are the most hardcore gamer on the PS3," he said. "They buy more games than the average PS3 user, they play more games than the average PS3 user. They also watch more movies than the average PS3 user, who is already a highly self-selective consumer. We're talking about rabid consumers of media and hardcore gamers. That's who these people are."

There was a point when Home was going to be on PSP, too, called "Room." Revealed at Tokyo Game Show, it was never released, and quietly shelved without much fanfare. Buser would not comment on whether the Room concept would return for Vita.

I didn't know the canned "Room" service is based on Home, but hey I'm glad they go 2D in Vita's more integrated social gaming services. Should fit Home with Vita's LiveArea somehow. Hopefully PS3 has a version of LiveArea in and outside Home too.

 

[patsu]

Visited Home again after my trip. I don't know if it's me, but it seems that there are more people in Home these days. May post some screenshots later. I used to see 10+ folks in the central plaza. These days, I often see about 30 (A space can hold up to 32, or 64 for special event)

I also see other significant improvements:

(1) Games are items instead of yet another Home Space
==================================
Bought the Scribble Shooter game yesterday. Unlike other Home games that are based on Spaces, Scribble Shooter is just a game cabinet. I can pull it out from my inventory and put it anywhere in my spaces. There is no need to download yet another Home Space, which is a great time saver. It should have been this way all along ! ^_^

A Home game should be a portal or item that "teleport" me to the game right away. The developers can focus on game development instead of wasting time on decorating Home Spaces.




(2) Improved engine
=============
The new engine seems to perform better, and allows more fine-grained (and cinematic) camera control. Probably important since a Home game runs in the Home world itself. Typically if you look around, you can still see other Home avatars (and their speech bubbles) while in the game. The Japanese folks had a Macross concert the other day. It's a marked improvement over the old Miku concert:

Macross Concert 2011:

(Part I)

(Part II)

Miku Concert 2009:

EDIT: The new concert format is interactive too. Pretty sleek.

EDIT 2: We also see text chat can be less intrusive than voice chat here.